


So Alright, Cool, Whatever

by Saltycadaver



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Coming Out, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), Slow Burn, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:07:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29006550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saltycadaver/pseuds/Saltycadaver
Summary: Marauders friendship, slow burn wolf star, starting in 6th year, after the prank. Lots of background Jily and Dorcas x MarleneI interpret Remus and Lily being really close friends so this fic features a lot of their friendship.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 7





	So Alright, Cool, Whatever

**Author's Note:**

> First Chapter! Remus and Lily hanging out over the summer before 6th year.
> 
> CW for weed usage

It’s true: I almost never  
smile, but that doesn’t mean

I’m not in love: my heart  
is that black violin  
played slowly. You know that

moment late in the solo  
when the voice  
is so pure you feel  
the blood in it: the wound

between rage  
and complete surrender. That’s  
where I’m smiling. You just  
can’t see it—the sound

bleeding perfectly  
inside me. 

“This is probably the first summer that I’m not looking forward to going back to school.” Remus mumbled, happy to share his pity.

“Hmm.” Lily murmured in agreement, looking rather dazily at the small line of smoke coming out of the spliff. “I s’pose. Although I am excited to see everybody again. It has been a good summer.” She moved in the beanbag, reaching over and handing Remus the spliff again, lying on his bed.

“I’m excited to see everyone too, but, I-” Remus laughed at his inability to convey the most basic of emotions. “This summer has been so nice. So much nicer than I expected it to be, especially after..”

“The Sirius-Fucking-Black-incident?” Lily supplied. Remus snorted. 

“Yeah. I swear, I thought things would never be normal again, but then it was summer, and it all seemed so blissfully unimportant, but school’s back in two weeks and I don’t know what’s gonna happen when I see him again.”

“Do you forgive him?”

Remus didn’t speak. This was a conversation that Lily had had many times. Stoned, sober, half asleep, over the phone, in the middle of the night, over coffee. Remus would swear he wouldn’t want to talk about it and yet it always came up. 

“I guess the better question would be do you trust him.”

Remus sighed. Lily was going back home the next day, after a week of staying at the Lupins’ home in Wales. This was the first summer she’d been allowed to stay over, and had convinced her parents that she would need to have three one week sleepovers to fully ensure Remus was alright, although Remus assumed the only reason the Evans let Lily stay over was because Remus’ mum was a muggle.

“I won’t really know until I see him again, will I?”

Lily snorted at the vague, repeated answer and stole the spliff from him again.

“Well, do you still fancy him?”

Remus rolled over off his back and onto his stomach, hoisting himself on his elbows to properly look sternly at Lily. He softened when he saw the small, suggestive grin she was throwing at him. They always seemed to have the same conversations over and over, and he would mock Lily endlessly for it, but in all honesty he didn’t mind. He liked sifting through information, and found it much more pleasant when he got Lily as a second opinion. 

“I don’t know if I still fancy him.”

Lily snorted. “Well, did you fancy him when you last spoke with him?”

Remus thought. He remembered saying goodbye to James and Sirius after they’d been carted off the Hogwarts Express. He remembered Sirius, and his sharp, intuitive grey eyes much sadder than usual; his sleek, curly black hair less brushed than nprmal; his soft lips speaking their last goodbye and another apology for measure. He didn’t know. How could he have been sure of anything when Sirius looked at him like that.

“How can I fancy someone if I don’t even trust them?”

Lily raised her deep red eyebrows. “So you don’t trust him?”

Remus groaned loudly, clutching a pillow to his chest. “I don’t know? How can I fancy someone if I can’t even tell if I trust them or not?”

Lily shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t make the rules. But I would think that..fancying someone isn’t very logical to begin with, right? It doesn’t always make sense. So, even if it’s dumb, if he broke your trust, you might still fancy him?” Lily sighed, and Remus could see the gears working behind her fogged up eyes, a little slower than normal. She shook her head, having not found whatever answers she was looking for. “I miss the days we could just talk about whether or not Sirius liked you back, not whether you liked him or not.”

Remus tutted. “Me too.” He took back the spliff from her, which was already alarmingly short to Remus (hadn’t they just lit it like five minutes ago? Where had it all gone?), and took a long draw on it. “Do you reckon you still fancy James?”

Lily smiled a little sappily before rolling her eyes. She sat up and pulled her duffle bag from her feet into her lap and began rummaging around in it. Eventually, she pulled out a large blue tin with a pretty drawing of chocolates on top. She tapped it’s top as if she wasn’t already holding it up for him to see. “Your parents will be home soon. Let's just finish the spliff, sit on your roof and watch the sunset. We can talk more about boys later.” She said grinning as she slowly stood.

Remus chuckled and stood, lifting open his window enough for Lily to climb onto the roof below. “After you,” He said.

Remus and Lily walked around the lake a mile from Remus’ home, skipping rocks occasionally, Remus in a plain white short sleeve-shirt and jeans, Lily in a cotton button up shirt and skirt. Lily was the only one Remus felt comfortable wearing anything short sleeved or revealing around-there wasn’t anything sexual or romantic about it. Remus was gay and Lily was deeply in love with James Potter (not that she would ever admit it), it was simply a matter of trust. Lily had once told Remus that “I think we’re close enough friends that I could hit you really hard and not feel bad about it.” They were best friends, through and through, and she was the only one who had ever seen and heard about the full extent of his scars.

Lily picked up a rock and threw it at the water, too harsh for any skipping to occur. “Petunia’s a wanker most of the time, but you should come and visit. Mum and Dad would love to meet you.”

“School starts in two weeks, and I’ll call you every day, but I don’t think there’s any more visits to fit into our schedules. Christmas break, certainly, although-” Remus winced slightly, “I don’t know if I’m quite ready to meet the menace that is Petunia Evans, from what you’ve described of her.”

Lily snorted. “That’s fair, although I do hope you get to meet my parents one day.” Lily was quiet for a moment, staring off into the cool dull welsh sky, lost in thought, before shaking herself. “We’ll call everyday. And I’ll call Mary and Dorcas everyday, and-” Lily snorted again, seemingly back to her usual self, “I still can’t believe Marlene and Emmeline don’t own phones, it’s absurd!”

“Six years at hogwarts and you still can’t believe pureblood shenanigans?” Remus laughed, cracking his back.

“I will never understand them.” Lily said, redoing her hair that had fallen out of place after a particularly absurd rock skip.

“Never? Even if you end up changing your name to Potter in a few years?”

Lily shot him a death glare, but her lips still quivered upwards in a smile. “More like few hundred.” She grumbled, then smirked, mischieviously, the same look she got right before hexing James with something she had spent the whole past week perfecting. “And if you change your last name to Black?”

Remus groaned-as he often did when Lily brought up Sirius in that context-and covered his face in his scarred hands. “Oh my god, could you not! You and James are obviously gonna get together-you both like each other, it’s simple.” Remus cleared his throat, trying to regain his pride. “Me and Sirius? I don’t even know if he’s queer, let alone fancies me. And neither one of us are particularly up for getting stoned by Rosier, so I really should just drop it.”

“Sorry, were you talking to me? Because I thought I just heard the desperate rambllings of a mad man who’s fallen for his posh-boy best friend?” Lily laughed. 

Remus used his height advantage to pat Lily on the head pityingly. “There, there,” he spoke, his words dripping with sarcasm, “No need to take all your sexual frustration with Pots out on me.”

Lily brought her hands up to her face in a fake sob, which quickly turned into a fit of giggles, which moved along their conversation from stupid joke to stupid joke, which landed them in front of Remus’s house almost half an hour later, Lily wiping the joyful tears off her face.

“Okay, okay-but in all seriousness though. If we get back to Hogwarts, and you see Sirius, and you decide you can’t handle it? Just tell me, and I’ll sock him in that stupid little face of his.”

Remus laughed despite himself, and threw an arm around Lily in a way he thought might be brotherly, if he had had any siblings. "Of course. I know you've been wanting to punch him once first year, I would never think of trying to stop you."

"You did in third year though! You practically tackled me to keep me from hurting him and his precious face!"

"I did not tackle you. I merely.. physically restrained you. Now, no more of this talk while my parents are home, you know the rules." He said, leading her back inside.

Hope had driven Lily and Remus to the train station shortly before noon. On the car ride back neither of them spoke, just listened to the radio while Remus stared gloomily out the window at the welsh countryside, with Hope staring ahead at the traffic less lanes.

Life at home for Remus was both painfully awkward and beautifully pleasant. He spent the remainder of his break riding his bike far and wide, searching for new hiding spots to read and write in, then returning home to have quiet meals with his parents, excusing himself earlier every night.

Remus's mother Hope was a muggle. She worked as an account at a bank not far away, and came home in the evenings to paint and read and listen to her records like they were the sacred texts. Remus's father Lyall was a wizard, flooing to the ministry every morning at his desk job, where he typed up reports on werewolf sightings and maintenance. At one point Remus had found it ironic-laughable even-that his father had been put in charge of the werewolf administration with an unregistered werewolf son, but Remus just found it sad now, all the lying he and his family had to do for his survival.

Lyall had been spending more and more dinners in his office with the door closed, and if his father was permitted to eat in his room, so was Remus. His Mother was kind and quiet. So quiet. So quiet you never knew what she was thinking, or if she was thinking. So quiet it became hard to stay in a room with her. But then she flashed you that sad, lonely smile whenever you tried to leave, so you couldn't possibly leave her alone. Lyall was kind and quiet, but thoughtful. Remus was always sure his dad had a thousand thoughts going on all at once, a million problems on his plate at every moment. He was kind, but more quiet out of exhaustion.

His family wasn't poor. They only needed to support three people, and two of them had jobs. They had never been wealthy, though. Their house was passed down to Hope when her parents died when she was young, and they had kept it, doing minor repairs in magic where it was necessary. 

They got by, which was all that really mattered in Remus's opinion. They would never be like The Blacks, owning millions from years of exploitation and blood money, or like The Potters, who were dripping in fame and success. Hell, they weren't even like The Pettigrews, working but healthy and wealthy purebloods. His father was an underfunded government employ and his mother was a woman in business.

But they got by. Remus used to complain much more about his shabby and traumatic, if content life. He had occupied the time he had spent complaining worrying about the war, and all the things that went bump in the night.

On the second to last day of the summer holiday, Remus spent outside as much as he could, despite the aches and throbs of his body from the coming full moon. He stretched out under the shade of a large sycamore tree and tossed his book away. 

The day before the full was always painful. His back ached and his limbs felt wobbly, but he was full of useless, restless energy. He was queasy and ravenous all at once, having thrown up in the bushes twice that day. The worst thing was he couldn’t concentrate. He found himself rereading the same line dozens of times and not retaining any of it, and he couldn’t write a poem to save his life. 

Remus tossed his book aside much more harshly than he would normally. What time was it? It must be getting late, he hoped Lyall would fetch him soon for the shed. Remus despised the shed he had to stay in for full moons, but it was worse waiting.

The shed. It was a normal looking falling apart slightly shed from the outside, but there were no tools in it. The walls were made of the same trees as the forbidden forest, and along with the dozens of protection and barrier charms around it, it was lined with silver.

The silver hadn’t always been there, but after Remus had broken through the door when he was eight, it had been added as an extra precaution. Remus could smell the silver bars of the shed from his room at night, if he concentrated hard enough.

When the time did come, and Remus’s head was swimming from the moon, and Lyall walked Remus to the shed, he regretted ever wishing for it. He undressed and entered the cold prison. His head began pounding when surrounded by the poison on all sides. It burned his nostrils and he felt the metal under his skin. Soon the pain of the transformation muddled together with the pain of the silver, and he was screaming, and then it was dark.

The first time  
I killed a vampire I was

sad: I mean  
we were almost  
family.

But that’s  
so many lives  
ago. I believe

in the cry that cuts  
into the melody, the strings  
calling back the forgotten world.

When I think of the madness  
that has made me and the midnight  
I walk inside—all day long:

when I think of that  
one note that breaks  
what’s left of what’s  
human in me, man,

I love everything

**Author's Note:**

> The poem that is split in the beginning and the end is Blade, Unplugged by Tim Seibles, I recommend reading it all at once at https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/blade-unplugged/ 
> 
> Stay Safe!


End file.
